Frequently Asked Questions

Tribal ICWA Contact Details Confirmation FAQ

Ayazuta is an internet service focused on improving ICWA compliance throughout the United States. Our goal is to support Case and Social Workers by automating the production of ICWA Notices. This will allow Social and Case Workers to concentrate on improving outcomes for children of American Indian ancestry, and will ensure Tribes receive information regarding children that may be eligible for membership in a timely and consistent manner.

One of the services we will be providing is a database of comprehensive and accurate contact details for ICWA matters in all tribes, this information will be available free of charge to all interested groups, and we will shortly be promoting this information source on a national scale.

One of our first steps to building our database and achieving improved ICWA compliance is to validate the noticing information for all Federally Registered Tribes.

Please have a look through our frequently asked questions, drop us a note, or give us a call.

1. Why is Ayazuta calling me to confirm ICWA contact Details?

We are trying to encourage ICWA compliance, and one of the first steps to achieving this is to make sure all interested parties have the correct ICWA contact details for each tribe. The Federal Register has some deficiencies and its accuracy tends to deteriorate over time (as people change roles, move buildings etc).

We have used the information in the Federal Register as a start point, alongside the California Department of Social Services List, and are now contacting every Tribe to verify details. We want to build the most up to date contact database, and keep it that way, so social and case workers can notice the correct tribes at the correct addresses.

2. Why does Ayazuta want me to fax confirmation of any changes?

We are making sure that we have the correct information for notice address changes in support of Federal Law, (the Indian Child Welfare Act), we appreciate that the Federal address needs to be noticed, but want to ensure that there is an audit trail for other ICWA notice addresses.

3. What does the status next to each Tribes addresses mean?

Information Status

Definition

BIA Federal Register

The entry on the Federal Register, historical tribe alphabetic list.

BIA Federal Register, Incorrect

The entry on the Federal Register where Ayazuta has established that the contact details are incorrect.

BIA Federal Register, added ...

The entry on the Federal Register where Ayazuta has only added information (no Federal Register Information Has been changed or deleted).

California List

A list supplied by California Department of Social Services, this list has no legal standing, but is generally more accurate than the Federal Register.

Noted, not yet Confirmed

Ayazuta has contacted the Tribe and been told that there are changes to the ICWA contact details, this is followed by Ayazuta sending a Faxable confirmation to be signed and returned by authorized individual, this authorized return has not yet been received.

Ayazuta Confirmed

Ayazuta has received a Fax or PDF confirmation of changes to ICWA contact details where the signatory to the confirmation has warranted that they are authorized to confirm these changes.

4. Who is looking at this information?

Based on our reviews of search information, the main users of our contacts database are Social and Case Workers responsible for noticing, and other tribes and support groups, looking for contact information, we keep a record of all searches carried out. In line with our privacy policy this information is not shared.

5. What if there is information I don't want to share?

Federal ICWA contact details and California DSS list details are already public domain documents, freely available on the internet, if you do not want to share information not publicly available, please tell us and we will not enter that information into our database.

6. What does Ayazuta mean?

7. What if my Tribe's information changes in the future?

Ayazuta is committed to checking in with every tribe at 6 monthly intervals to make sure the contact details are still valid, and we have 2 other ways of finding out about changes, firstly, Tribes can let us know when contact details change, using the contact us page, and secondly, our Tribal search function has a button which allows users to report a change. In both cases we will check out the change and ask the tribe to confirm the new details.